1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to data transformations from a first format and syntax to a second format and syntax. More particularly, the invention relates to methods, systems and program products creating mapping rules from meta data for data transformations utilizing visual editing.
2. Description of Prior Art
Data within enterprises is stored and managed in many different formats. Companies continually need to integrate different systems within an enterprise or across enterprises. Often these integrations require that the data in different systems be transformed or remapped so that it is compatible with the expected mapping and format of the data in other systems. Many data transformation and mapping tools exist in the market already. However, these tools are generally designed to describe how to map existing data to another data format, and not across a series of data formats.
What is needed in the data transformation art is a technique for generating transformation rules and scripts which can be applied to many different sets of data. A preferred technique would utilize visual editing of the transformation rules using the description of the data format and semantic or meta data in lieu of the actual data. Visual editing provides a user with the ability to visualize the difference between the element and sub-element of the meta definition of the data being mapped. meta data describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected and how the data is formatted. meta descriptions are often easier to create than a sampling of the actual data. Transformations based off actual data may be inaccurate to the complete set of data that may be input to the system. When working directly off actual data, the transformation generated may be too generic or specific because of the context of the sample data that was utilized in order to create the transformation. If there is improper data for the set of transformations and mapping, the meta data can describe the erroneous data and the transformation process and rules can throw out this data or warn the user that the data is inappropriate. Moreover, data does not necessarily easily represent the semantics or context of the data to the user creating the transformation or mapping. This is generally better described in meta data rather than in the actual data. For example, an Extended Markup Language-Document Type Definition (XML DTD) that has a PRODUCT element with an attribute called DESCRIPTION, will generally provide good information to the operational person creating the mapping what the data represents. However, the actual description data being seen in the transformation visualization tool will not necessarily make it obvious to the operation person that the information is a description. Finally, a transformation over a meta description is reusable across a wide set of data that conforms to the meta information description and will generally be more robust than one produced from some sub-sampling of data.
Prior art related to data transformation includes:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,516 issued Mar. 5, 1985, discloses a method of transforming a first editable form of a document prepared by an interactive text processing system into a second and incompatible editable form for use in another interactive or batch text processing system through the use of a transform mechanism is described. A significant step of this method requires the identification of a limited number of key state variables, whose values collectively identify the necessary state information for transforming the first document form to the second. After the key state variables have been identified, the actual number of combinations thereof is determined. For each first document form input item encountered by the transform mechanism, and for each combination of key state variables in which that input item can be encountered, one or more output items for the second document form is explicitly defined as the transform thereof. In addition, the state of the transform mechanism after each such transform has occurred, must also be specified. The described method is also to resolve the actual state that exists at the start of each document. It is also adapted to handle sub-documents, such as margin text, existing within a document to be transformed
U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,314 issued Oct. 5, 1993, discloses a transform information object created for each object within a data processing system. An indication of each document type which has been created as a result of a transformation of that document and an identification of the application which can perform the transformation are then stored within the transform information object along with an indication of selected entities within the document which were not transformable by the application. Subsequent attempts at a transformation of the document may then be efficiently performed by a reference to the transform information object and the utilization of the information stored therein. In one embodiment of the present invention the transform application name, address location within the data processing system and capability description are stored within the transform information object.
Data Junction, described at http://www.datajunction.com, discloses an engine that connects to data in its native environment and performs transformations in memory. The engine is complemented by a GUI that enables the visual creation of complex transformation routines. A Metadata Query utility allows users to run queries against a Data Junction Metadata Repository.
None of the prior art discloses visual transformation rule GUIs utilizing meta data to create transformations mappings which do not work off data and visually represent the form of the expected data by dragging and dropping elements between an input form and output form without the need for any sampled data.